AWTY, Olga Elizabeth

1928 - 2014

As Olga Elizabeth Marshall, she was born at 338 Windmill Road, Ealing, London on 8 April 1928, daughter of Charles Horatio Marshall (1897-1952), a Barclays bank manager, and his wife Olive EnanéeHall (1898-1982), who married in 1926. She trained at the Slade School of Arts & Crafts 1946-1950, gaining a Diploma in Fine Art in 1949, with a bursary for further study. After leaving the Slade School, her first teaching post was at St Felix School at Southwold, Suffolk and Olga later taught at St Margaret's School at Eskrick Park, Yorkshire and at Park School Preston 1956-1959, where she was Senior Art mistress. As Olga Marshall, she married at Kew in 1953, Brian Gordon Awty (1926-2013) and painted under the name of Olga Awty. In 1962 she was living at Thurlow Park Road, West Dulwich London with her husband and two children. Her final teaching post was as Head of Art at the City of London School for Girls and on retirement returned to Suffolk living firstly at Wrentham and latterly at Rectory Street, Halesworth. She exhibited in Yorkshire, London and East Anglia from the 1960ís and has had a long association with the Blyth Estuary around her Suffolk home. She died at Ipswich on 1 July 2014, leaving a son and a daughter. A retrospective exhibition of Olga's was held at Steeple End Gallery in Halesworth 2-20 May 2015.